Mexico

As in 2006, mass street protests have erupted in Mexico against electoral fraud by the ruling class. Accounts of massive vote-buying by the PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party) have prompted as many as half-a-million people, mainly youth, to come out to the streets of Mexico City. As a first step, the candidate of the left, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, should call for more protests, demonstrations, and occupations. But the lesson of 2006 is that such a movement can only succeed if it is the launching pad for an all-out general strike.

The Mexican authorities have launched a concerted attack on labour and student activists, in particular against members of CLEP-CEDEP. Please take up this solidarity and protest campaign urgently in your school, faculty or place of work and make your voice heard.

Latin America is in the midst of a great awakening, a revolutionary struggle. From the outside, it would seem as if Mexico has been the exception to this; the capitalist press here in Canada have painted Mexico as the bastion of stable bourgeois democracy. As a result, people have made the mistaken assumption that the right-wing government of the (illegitimate) President of Mexico, Felipe Calderón, is a reflection of the will and mood of the masses of Mexico. This could not be further from the truth. The mood in Mexico is very much a revolutionary one; conditions in Mexico become more and more difficult every day for the Mexican working class and the people have said “¡Ya basta!” – enough is enough.

The wave of repression on Mexican activists is continuing. Fifteen students holding a sit-in in the General Headship offices of the IPN headquarters were arrested by the Federal District Police. See also the Spanish original.

After the recent resurgence of the mass movement in Oaxaca the authorities have responded by launching a wave of brutal repression. Many activists have been arrested. Among these is a comrade of the Militante Marxist Tendency and APPO activist. Workers and youth in all countries should protest strongly!